Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Army releases $5B ITES hardware RFP

The Army has released the solicitation for its $5 billion Information Technology Enterprise Solutions 3- Hardware contract.
Proposals for the five-year contract are due Oct. 22.

The Army will use the contract, known as ITES-3H, to buy a variety of IT equipment to support the Army’s IT infrastructure. The hardware has to be compatible with the Army’s network operations and net-centric operations.

The equipment to be purchased will fall into nine broad categories, such as Unix and non-Unix services; workstations, desktops and thin clients; storage systems; networking equipment; video equipment; and cable, connectors and accessories.

The contract will have multiple winners, who will compete with each other for task orders. ITES-3H has a three-year base and two one-year options.

ITES-3H replaces ITES-2H, which is held by CDW, Iron Bow Technologies, Dell Inc., GTSI Corp., IBM Corp. and World Wide Technology.

According to Deltek, $4.1 billion in task orders have been awarded under the contract over the last five years. Iron Bow and World Wide have captured the most business, each taking in over $1 billion in awards. IBM had the lowest amount with $136.6 million in business.

Source  http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2012/09/25/ites-3h-solicitation-released.aspx

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Enterprise Networking: Centrify Brings Centralized User Management to Heterogeneous Networks

Sold in suite form, Centrify Suite 2012 Enterprise Edition brings several elements together to create a user and system management suite that leverages Active Directory while incorporating Linux/Unix/Macintosh systems into the mix. Centrify's centralized user management helps tame the new security paradigm created by multidevice user access scenarios to servers, applications and endpoint systems in the cloud and on-premises. The product's centralized management screen makes it easy to define roles, groups, zones and other container-level directory elements, while incorporating a single sign-on methodology for end users. With Centrify Suite 2012 Enterprise Edition, administrators can remotely deploy software, as well as enable advance auditing capabilities, transparently to users of Windows, Linux, Unix and Macintosh systems and servers. Unlike meta-directory synchronization tools, Centrify brings direct integration capabilities, allowing just a single directory to hold all account data, eliminating the need for cross directory synchronization.